The Mediating Role of Experiences of Need Satisfaction in Associations Between Parental Psychological Control and Internalizing Problems: A Study Among Italian College Students

Trait Emotional Intelligence as Mediator Between Psychological Control and Behaviour Problems

“…Several scholars have highlighted the necessity of exploring the mechanisms that establish the relationship between psychological control and adolescents' functioning Costa et al 2014c;Soenens et al 2005). Alegre (2011) suggested, but did not test, that trait EI could have a relevant role in the dynamics between parental psychological control The first objective of the present research was to verify if there was a relationship between psychological control and trait EI.…”

“…Parcelling was used to ensure that we would have enough observations per estimated parameter, and to obtain the optimal number of three indicators per factor (Little et al 2002). In addition, parcelling has several advantages in the modelling of latent variables, relative to the use of individual items (Little et al 2002;Marsh et al 1998) and is a widely used procedure for both parental psychological control (e.g., Ahmad et al 2013;Costa et al 2014c) and internalising and externalising problems (e.g., Calvete 2007;Fontaine et al 2008). The indicators of the latent variable for trait EI were the four trait EI factors (well-being, self-control, emotionality, and sociability) plus two components (adaptability and self-motivation; see Petrides and Furnham 2001).…”

“…However, the psychological mechanisms underlying the association between psychological control and problematic behaviours (internalising and externalising problems) are not well known Costa et al 2014c;Soenens et al 2005). Furthermore, literature about parental psychological control shows other gaps that need to be examined: in fact, although psychological control by parents seems to have a strong influence on the development of the emotional world of their adolescents and interferes with the establishment of a secure, stable, and positive sense of self (Barber and Harmon 2002), no study has yet investigated its impact on adolescents' trait EI (Alegre 2011).…”

Parenting Dimensions and Internalizing Difficulties in Italian and U.S. Emerging Adults: The Intervening Role of Autonomy and Relatedness

“…First, the absence of autonomy supportive parenting practices cannot necessarily be equated with the presence of psychologically controlling practices. Second, psychologically controlling parenting has been argued to be more strongly associated with maladaptive outcomes than the lack of autonomy supportive parenting, although this conjecture has not been thoroughly tested (for exceptions, see Costa et al 2014;Vansteenkiste and Ryan 2013). Indirect evidence for the usefulness of examining the distinct role of autonomy support and psychological control comes also from studies in other socialization domains, including coaching (Bartholomew et al 2011a, b) and teaching (Haerens et al 2015).…”

“…Although most scholars have examined the direct associations between parental control, autonomy support and children's difficulties, findings from some studies suggest that other variables can serve an intervening role in these relations (Ahmad et al 2013;Blatt 2004;Costa et al 2014;Soenens et al 2007Soenens et al , 2009. Inclusion of intervening variables allow for the examination of the mechanism through which parenting dimensions are related to children's internalizing problems.…”